Will decide, but he won't debate

Listening to Iconoclast and reading Sunny Hundal's views on whether the BBC should allow BNP MEP Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time (preview: Sunny's agin' it) it occurs to me that most TV/radio debates are fundamentally flawed. On Iconoclast there were four guests and one chairman. IIRC Question Time has five guests + one Dimbleby brother + a studio audience.

Partly as a result of this Sunny Hundal describes Question Time as:

...basically a populist shouting match where facts and figures don't have time to get checked. Someone such as Dan Hannan MEP can claim 84% of our laws are made in Europe and no one calls him out on his rubbish. Nick Griffin could similarly claim he's not racist and repeat lies that go unchallenged live on air. BNP pamphlets have repeatedly featured lies in the past. Who will have the research on hand to challenge that? His fellow QT panellists won't.

My preference would be to limit the number of debaters to two, and have only a few distinct issues discussed for a reasonable period of time, say 20 minutes each for three issues in an hour-long show.

Assertions made by debaters would have to be based on robust, ideally peer-reviewed, evidence that is cited by the debaters before they go on the show. These citations would be made available to all some time before the programme is broadcast so that they can be analysed by a panel of experts appointed by the programme and those that are found wanting can be made inadmissable.

In other words more like a court or parliament.

This view may seem elitist, but it isn't really elitist to claim that the views of ordinary people aren't as valid as the evidence-based views of experts. We demand a high standard of evidence in medicine, so why not demand a high standard of evidence in political debate?

Deliberative democracy is not best served by treating the truth as something relative or subject to an individual opinion.

It annoys me when people conflate respect for democracy with the idea that everyone's opinions are valid and useful. Most people don't know enough about enough to be able to make meaningful contributions.

For my own part I know my ignorance of most matters is such that I should avoid commenting, but that does not mean I cannot take down the ideas of others I know to be false.

Call it the Statler and Waldorf school of political debate: ideas are cheap, but the truth is expensive.

As such it is the democratic duty of we bloggers to attack bad ideas and incorrect assertions. Negativity is a powerful creative force. Our society will only begin to evolve when bad ideas are allowed to be called bad ideas and dismissed as such.

Update:

As per badconscience's point in the comments "Question Time" is teh suck and I need to crank up the Mills and dial down the Plato.

Both philosophers are hovering somewhere in the middle of my prodigious to-read pile (Mills is definitely a serious contender for my next big Amazon raid [i.e. this has moved from "wish list" to "shopping basket"]).

For my part elitism does piss me off, but not nearly to the same extent as ignorance and crass populism.

Update update: actually reading badconscience's blog post over on Liberal Conspiracy he makes the same point but somewhat better.

Sharpening the memetic razors

If there's one thing slightly more annoying than blog posts the existences of which are due entirely to some minor irritation on the part of their creator it is post subtitles on CiF [1] that are laid out in the manner:

"We need a [insert your choice of damnfool idea here]"

The first thing that annoys me about this habit is the presumption of any journalist or blogger deciding that "we" need something. The audacity.

The second thing that annoys me about this habit is the wholly unintentional Royal Pronounity of the form. Like the author thinks they're the Queen. Damn their eyes etc.

Despite this Robert Sharp is excused, not so much because he didn't annoy me, but because he actually talks sense [2]:

Despite the robust nature of much of the debate online, I do perceive a sort of online Omerta, a Way of the Blogs. This states that if you have been offended or disrespected online, you can always fight your corner by setting up a counter-blog somewhere else. The idea is that you do not attempt to suppress the offensive material, legally or otherwise, but instead use the same medium to counter and debunk it.

More diverse memes and more aggressive selection pressure ensures that only optimal ideas are amplified and replicated.

And such is the power of liberal pluralism. If you can't stone them to death then join them.



[1] I know I promised to stop reading CiF after NNT advised that newspapers were full of tosh, but as CiF is theoretically a blog aggregate and as such a Public Forum I am entirely justified in finally dropping my ill-thought-out New Years Resolution.

[2] And in any case he is actually identifying a blogging phenomena rather than actually advocating one. I blame the copy editors for the silly (and blood-pressure-increasing) subtitle.

A perfectionist trapped in an indolent's body

~In which a deep conflict of personality within our hero is discussed~

I am a perfectionist.

Given the choice I would love to do pursue this blogging lark properly. I would love to lovingly craft a lovely blog in WordPress or MoveableType or some such. I would love to lavish countless hours on CSS templates and plugins. I want to worry and obsess over tiny details of compatibility and stick little "certified CSS" or "XML validated" stickers all over my prospective palace of a personal portal.

Unfortunately I don't have the time. Amazingly I have other things to do.

Now this presents something of a quandary.

I am an indolent¹.

I believe that life is for living. I believe that civilization progresses by reducing the number of conscious operations required to accomplish a particular task. Laziness is a virtue that has catapulted a rather peculiar hairless ape into a position that is apparently unprecedented in the history of the known universe.

So on the one hand I have an obsessive desire to realise a given project, because craft is it's own reward.

And on the other hand I lack the inclination to dedicate my time and energy to something that doesn't appear to produce any clear reward beyond craft.

Therefore I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I need to shape up and show off. I need to become more actively self promotional and invest more time and energy in the content and quality of my blog postings.

Hopefully this will lead to a feedback loop in which feedback (hopefully constructive) leads to a greater desire on my part to invest time and energy in the enterprise of blogging.

~To be continued~


1: I'm aware this is an adjective but I am hereby coining it as a noun that refers to one who prefers efficient accomplishment over unproductive activity.

My contribution

Opinions, in the wise words of Chris Dillow, are mere arseholes. Everyone has one but I don't want to hear them.

Now being as I have access to little special knowledge or empirical data not available to everyone else, and being as my thoughts are largely the opinions of other people this leaves me in something of a quandary.

What do I blog about? There are so many topics I need to learn more about before I am qualified to analyse the relevant data: what can I contribute?

The obvious answer is that I can simply ask questions.

Surprisingly few blogs concentrate on defining the terms of their own ignorance as opposed to ranting on about their opinions.

Therefore from now on I will concentrate on asking questions and attempting to come to conclusions.

Potentially lengthy blogging interregnum

Some guy called Daniel Davis has written a much better blog than I. This is dispiriting but also reassuring. It means I won't be the guy who says good things but I have less responsibility if those good things result in a pyramid of skulls.

In the meantime I got into Warwick University to study systems engineering. This is a pretty awesome fact.

Timewasting

Since I made a conscious decision to stop reading newspapers a la Taleb I've found that I spend more time reading blogs, most especially the Yorkshire Ranter, Stumbling and Mumbling, and DSquared.

In fact the amount of time I've freed up by reading fewer newspapers has been entirely consumed by additional blog reading.

My attention span seems to be subject to its own version of Jevon's Paradox. Increases in the efficiency and quality of my text consumption are immediately swallowed up by an overall increase in the amount of text consumed.

I would prefer to spend my time reading substantive literature, both novels and textbooks, rather than blogs. However because I spend so much of my time sitting in front of an Internet connected screen I inevitably end up getting distracted by them.

What is the best way to write blog posts?

The best way to write blog posts is to have a clear and specific point to make, and only to make one point per blog post.

If you want to make multiple points, or write a multifaceted argument on a particular subject what you are writing become what Stephen Fry calls a blessay.

From now on I will try to keep my posts short and interesting, rather than long and rambling.

The nolinkvisit rule of worthwhile Internet stuff

Like all denizens of the Interwubz I have, over the course of several years, collected records of everything I've read, touched, looked at, linked to, discussed, commented on, or visited - the sticky trail of webby spoor that will undoubtedly follow me for the rest of my life.

I back up bookmarks at Delicious, Google bookmarks, and locally, both in my browser and in big HTML gloms in my weekly monthly backups.

The other day when I did this I realised that the blog of Scottish science fiction writer Ken MacLeod was not included in any of my bookmarks! I realised that over the years I've been reading his excellent weblog I've simply got into the habit of (I've never liked RSS aggregators - I've tried FeedDemon but found it deeply unsatisying somehow) clicking through when I visited Charles Stross' similarly excellent weblog.

It occurs to me that this behaviour can act as a kind of litmus test for genuinely excellent online stuff.

If you care enough about something to remember it without creating a link on your desktop or browser then it's almost certainly worthwhile.

Called it the nolinkvisit rule.

Wag the blog

Since I stopped reading newspapers I have replaced much of my procrastination reading Polly Toynbee's and Janet Daley's opinions on whatever with reading some of the following sci-tech/economics/SF blogs. They are no more or less well-informed than professional newspaper columnists but considerably more amusing:

• Stumbling and Mumbling by sometime stock-picker and author of this book Chris Dillow.
• The Yorkshire Ranter by some programmer and military history enthusiast Alex Harrowell.
• D-Squared Digest by some vaguely economic-type Daniel Davis.
• The Conscience of a Liberal by Nobel economics dude Paul Krugman.
• Jon Taplin's Blog by communications professor Jon Taplin.
• Ideas by David Friedman, author of this libertarian book.
  
• The War Nerd by a military history enthusiast from Fresno.
• Short Sharp Science by the good people at New Scientist magazine.
• Physorg by a load of people.
• The Early Days of a Better Nation by SF writer Ken MacLeod.
• Charlie's Diary by SF writer Charles Stross.
• Matamodern by nanotechnology theorist Eric Drexler.
• Bringing Nothing to the Party by raconteur Paul Carr.
• FuturePundit.
• What's Next: Top Trends.
• An American Redhead in London by, er, an American redhead in London.
• Futurismic by various people.
• Velcro City Tourist Board by Paul Raven.
  

I'm pretty sure that doing this goes against the spirit of my desire to read more actual books rather than irrelevant nonsense.

{No offense is implied to any of the above: I'm just saying at this stage in my life it would probably be better to focus on the profound and important rather than the trivial and up-to-the-minute}

*Sigh* --- I should really just avoid reading blogs altogether. It isn't educational, and doesn't improve my deep knowledge about anything.

Damn you Taleb

Bearing in mind Nassim Nicholas Taleb's admonitions to stop reading newspapers, I have been making an effort to avoid doing so.

The problem is I am finding it extremely difficult. I can just about avoid watching TV, but I spend so much time online it become difficult to avoid looking at newssites. Even worse (when I do) reading articles like this:

Churnalism and all other forms of sponsored or assisted reporting are deplorably remote from Steer's ideal of the reporter as author of history's first draft. They are really little more than sordid compromises which famous newspapers and broadcasters feel forced to make in a plummeting market.

I believe that one day and somehow web-based news outlets will find a way to finance expensive, agenda-setting journalism. But that is a faith-based position, not an entirely rational one. The website does not yet exist that can afford to send correspondents on speculative foreign missions or to fund expensive long-term investigations.

As yet, despite the brilliance of sites such as this one, the best online journalism remains dependent on revenues earned by its paper and broadcast parents and upon journalists employed and paid primarily by old media outlets.

The problem with this is that I simply don't even buy newspapers. On the other hand I don't buy blogs, and there are some excellent weblogs that are completely free (The Yorkshire Ranter, Charlie's Diary, Stumbling and Mumbling etc).

The problem with blogs is that for every reasonable blog there are thousands of unreasonable ones. If people don't like what one blog says they can just go and find one that says stuff they like - I'm probably guilty of this myself in my blog selection.

This leads to what the one of the guests on Andrew Marr's Start the Week (in which he recaps some of the more profound biotechnological and computational stories of the past year) describes as counter knowledge.

Perhaps I should just go cold-turkey on all forms of media, including blogs and newspapers, TV news and so forth?

The problem is if I did that I wouldn't know what to think! I need to know more before I can make reasonable judgements, and the only way I can find out more is if I read more, and the only way I can read more educational stuff is if I read books (including textbooks).

One of the comments on this blog post on Overcoming Bias (another excellent blog) puts it rather well: the "opportunity cost" of reading newspapers is very high.

Blogging my life away...

Paul Carr has some interesting points about the issue of how much having a blog/social networking page/online presence of any kind can damage your career/political prospects.

This is something that has bothered my slightly in the past.

Definitely not my style

Carr's solution is to simply accept that he will never be able to rise within a big company or become Prime Minister.

I, on the other hand, suspect hope that blogs will probably be pretty much irrelevant as far as politics/career prospects are concerned - everyone in my generation will have some kind of online presence - and anyone who doesn't will be, well, a bit weird...

Kinda like they thought they might run for office from the age of 12...

Obviously if there are any major racist/evil points then these will be a problem. But I haven't written anything like that.

I am a hard worker

But looking back over the stuff I've put online over the past few years, there's nothing I'm particularly ashamed of...

Maybe the £30 million thing...

But I would actually like £30 million! There's nothing wrong with that!

Also there's my relentless criticism of Middle England. I guess this pretty much disqualifies me from political office in England. Damn.

[images from the Sachs Report]

And Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen...

What a load of nonsense.

This is the best summary of what might have happened that I can find.